Here is a story from the winter days
of the end of 1959 and the beginning of 1960. It is a story of error
and desire, of unrequited love, and of a religious question that
remains unresolved. Some of the buildings still bore the marks of the
war that had divided the city a decade earlier. In the background you
could hear the distant strains of an a harmonica from behind closed
shutters.

The city is
Jerusalem, divided into Israeli and Palestinian sectors. For readers
who are not familiar with the history of Israel as a Jewish state it
would be most helpful if they were to read at least a brief
description of it beforehand, for it constitutes the backdrop of our
story.

Amos
Oz is perhaps the foremost Israeli writer today. He has written many
novels and essays, the most well known being A Tale of Love
and Darkness, an autobiography
thinly disguised as fiction. It has recently been made into a movie.

Although
the title of the book reviewed here is Judas, the
original title in Hebrew is The Gospel of Judas.
I don't know why the British publisher (Chatto & Windus) chose to
eviscerate the title in this way; perhaps they considered it too
provocative for their mostly Christian readership, or they thought it
would be misunderstood to really be a Gospel. It is a kind of Gospel
though, but the Gospel of Amos Oz, who has often defended the
Palestinian cause, not that of defeating Israel of course, but of
some kind of cooperation.

Judas Iscariot is a
background character for Oz's humanist message of peace. The main
characters are three: first and foremost Schmuel Ash, a young Israeli
student fallen on hard times – his father's bankruptcy and
inability to continue financing his studies, and his having lost his
girlfriend who suddenly married her previous lover. During his
university days Schmuel had been engaged in a study of the Jews'
relation to Jesus, which involves a study of Jewish literature on the
subject as well as the New Testament. At one point Shmuel wonders why
the Jews didn't accept Jesus, someone whom Shmuel greatly admires. He
fantasizes that then the West would have embraced a soft version of
Judaism.

He considers that
Judas has been unjustly condemned as the villain of the story. After
all, he muses, without Judas Jesus would not have been crucified and
there would be no Christianity. But as the bad guy who betrayed Jesus
for 30 pieces of silver, a miserly sum for someone in Judas'
position, he also became the prototype of the eternal Jew, the
murderer of God in Christian eyes.

Essentially,
Shmuel comes to the conclusion that Judas was the most fervent
believer of Jesus as the Son of God. He had followed him since the
baptism, had witnessed the miracles and had loved the most loving man
who ever lived. As the most educated of the disciples, as well as the
administrator/treasurer, he realized that a truly sensational miracle
would have to take place in order for the world to take notice and
enable Jesus to spread his message of love and peace. And what better
miracle than death and resurrection? Judas is totally convinced of
Jesus' divinity and power, but Jesus is not so sure. Judas is able to
convince Jesus that his Father in heaven will take him down from the
cross and thus prove to everyone, not only the Jews but the Romans as
well, that Jesus is indeed the Messiah and the Savior. When it
doesn't work out that way and Judas must watch in horror as Jesus
dies on the cross, he runs away and commits suicide because of his
own guilt and sorrow. That, essentially, is the Gospel of Judas,
described in detail and poetically by Oz.

That, however, is
not the book's real message. There are only three live characters. In
addition to Shmuel: we have Gershom Wald, an infirm old man whom
Shmuel is hired to accompany a few hours a day, basically to converse
with him, which means to listen and make tea, for which he receives
room and board and some pocket money in an old house also occupied by
Atalia Abravanel, an enticing woman old enough to be Schmuel's
mother. Schmuel falls in love with her of course, but she is still
tragically married to Gershom Wald's son, who was killed when a
soldier in the Jewish-Arab conflict.

The fascinating
philosophical conversation between the young Shmuel and the old
Gershom plays an important part in the book, but the real hero is
Atalia's father, Shaltiel Abravanel, who had been a respected member
of Israel's founding Zionist clique, dominated by David
Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister. Ben-Gurion is a real
historical figure, Abravanel is not. Whether such a person really
existed I don't know. The fictional character did not agree with
forcing out the original Palestinian Arabs, in fact he didn't think
that Israel should be a Jewish state, rather should it be a country
in which all could live in equality as brothers. In fact he had many
Arab friends who often visited him at home. When he publicly insisted
on this viewpoint he has expelled from the ruling circle and called a
traitor, a label he carried on his back like a cross for the rest of
his life.

Abravanel is Amos
Oz's Judas, expelled, exiled from society, hated. He didn't commit
suicide, but his separation from society was complete. Atalia's
husband, Gershom Wald's son, an idealistic defender of the Jewish
state, volunteers to join the army despite having only one kidney,
and thus exempt from military service, is killed in action in what
could be thought of as a Christ-like sacrifice, leaving Atalia's Mary
Magdalene alone with her bitterness.

Both Judases meet
rejection and a tragic end after having been right morally but in
practice tragically wrong. According to old Gershom Wald,
Ben-Gurion's greatness lay in his knowledge that the Arabs would
never accept a Jewish state in Palestine, so the only alternative is
to fight them; Abravanel insisted that only mutual respect and
equality can lead to an acceptable result. The tragedy continues to
unfold still.